


One Girl in All the World

by E_D_Lake



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dubious Consent, F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-06-02 22:49:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6585721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/E_D_Lake/pseuds/E_D_Lake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two Slayers were called, but there was still, somehow, only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have edited this first bit down, since I have actually posted the first chapter of the full version that this covered in synopsis, and it was way too confusing to leave the synopsis up.

She thought it happened to everyone who died.

That first time it was just for a moment. Her heart started beating again and, for a second, she felt like she was back under water. Not the musty, frigid water of the Master’s pool - this felt warm and saline, peaceful. Then she was coughing and gasping her way back to life with an echo in her ears.

It happened more and more - putting on sunglasses in the rain, and then taking them off again because it wasn’t blazingly bright, was it? Sweating in the chill fog of the cemetery at midnight. Getting her ears checked because she kept hearing the faint sound of the waves, not all the time, but often. Her ears were fine. She was fine. She had died, right? That must make a person a little... odd.

Career Day came and went, leaving her boxed in, crowded by her destiny. And by whatever phantom corner kept digging into her thigh. It didn’t feel like a dark mood, although it wasn’t not-that. It felt like literal darkness. And it didn’t lift until well after sundown.

That night she fell asleep in Angel’s bed aching, as she was often aching. She felt the blow coming - no, she **saw** it coming, as though she were delivering it. And the shock of the parry jarred both of her arms, although she’d only used one.

She didn’t tell anyone how that fight ended. How they never did talk about Angel because her ache matched Kendra’s ache, how sparring turned to wrestling turned, after a brief interrogation of each other’s humanity, to… something else. 

It wasn’t sex, exactly. It looked like sex, had the rhythm and the sound and the sweat and the friction. But it was too… internal. It was masturbation using a powerful spare pair of hands, trading orgasms not out of concern for each other but because one body could recover while the other came. If Kendra bit Buffy’s shoulder, it was only to find out what it felt like. If Buffy curled her fingers hard to hit Kendra’s g-spot, it was only because she could never quite reach her own. 

They never mentioned it, after. They never needed to. Fighting together was just as satisfying, and way less difficult to explain to themselves. There was a lot of it to be done, too, until Kendra left. Buffy listened for the sound of the waves feeling both a little more and a little less… odd. 

And then Kendra came back. And died. 

# 

Buffy left town. She couldn’t stand to deal with a grief no one else understood. She told herself was grieving for Angel - she’d barely met Kendra. Kendra was a fallen ally, to be mourned and honored by moving on, by fighting the same fight she died in. Her loss was not the personal tragedy that Angel’s banishment to Hell was. 

But it was a loss. Buffy never heard the sound of the sea anymore. She never felt that focused, selfless flow that was Kendra practicing, or the molten-lava version, which was Kendra fighting. Her head was filled with absence, and grief, and rage. And the shitty apartment felt correct against that loss. The terrible job, the contempt and objectification of the customers, the flat gray impoverished life she had as Anne. It all felt right. 

Until there was Faith. 

Faith swaggered into town looking for Buffy. Unlike Kendra, Faith knew exactly what was going on. Her entire experience of Slayerhood was having this other person, this other *Slayer*, in the back of her head. And, being Faith, she decided she wanted that other in front of her, instead. 

The first few times they ended up at Faith’s place, or in an unlocked car, or in a definitely-empty-we-checked-twice crypt, Buffy assumed this was just like with Kendra. Just pure pleasure, better than either of them could find on their own. Even better than Kendra just because Faith had some experience, knew some tricks. 

And then one night, while they were both pausing for breath, Faith abruptly said, “You better not die on me, B.” 

And Buffy thought, involuntarily, of what losing Faith would do to her. She’d already lost the ocean. Could she lose this, too? This fire, this drive, that pushed her to be better and better, to experience everything and grab at life in a way she never had before? She didn’t realize she was crying until Faith slipped calloused fingers through her hair and murmured, “B, B, chill. Buffy. It’s ok. I ain’t planning on dying, either.” 

Buffy kissed her, then, kissed _Faith_ , not just used Faith’s lips to enjoy the sensations of kissing and being kissed. And everything changed. Every contact now had meaning, every sensation was fed back and forth between them until it became overwhelming. Buffy started trying things, not to find out if she liked them, but to find out if Faith did. And she did. 

Faith bolted that night - morning, really - and Buffy climbed into her own bed numb, physically and emotionally wrung out. That was the last time they saw each other for almost a week. They didn’t need to see each other to know each other’s patrol routes, to avoid them while never being quite so far apart that either couldn’t have come running if necessary. But they couldn’t avoid each other forever - or indeed, very long at all - and they fell back into their old pattern, almost, but not quite, unchanged. 

They never did talk about it, though. 


	2. Swing and a Miss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first part of the Faith arc fixit that I have so many damn feels about, starring a scene that doesn't show up in canon (and another that couldn't, for obvious reasons.) Fair warning - this is likely to be posted extremely intermittently.
> 
> CWs: canon-appropriate violence, the fundamentally dubcon nature of sensate sex

They always danced together.

Not always _together_ together, although that was fun, too - tight leather pants and lean thighs grinding, unconscious perfect synchronization. That got the crowd going. No, Faith and Buffy mostly danced in parallel, sliding into the center of the crowd, watching the men watch them. Sometimes Faith took the one who liked blondes - there was always one of those - and made him forget all about Buffy. Sometimes Buffy took him, and smirked at his expression when she left him for Faith. Sometimes - rarely - they’d get a good couple of songs in a row, a good crowd, and they’d just _dance._

Faith was grinding against one of the gentlemen who preferred blondes, breathing in the sweat and musk and faint stale-beer reek of the Bronze, when something caught her attention. It wasn’t quite a smell of rot, wasn’t quite a sour chord in the melody almost buried beneath the thumping bass. Behind her, to her left, she felt Buffy stiffen. She grabbed her erstwhile partner by the v-neck of his shirt, catching a few of his chest hairs between her fingers, and pulled him down for a wet and startled kiss, then pivoted on her bootheel and slid between dancers just in time to see the back door of the Bronze swing closed.

“This is getting old, B,” she said without looking around.

“I know, right? You’d think they’d figure it out.” Buffy shouldered the steel door open. Faith followed. Down the street at an easy, deceptively quiet jog, around the corner to an alley. The vamps liked this alley. Apparently none of them counted how many of them came out, compared to how many went in.

This was how Faith could take Buffy dancing every weekend.

Buffy had her stake high as she rounded the corner. Faith was half a step behind. A figure knelt over another against the grimy concrete wall, head bowed, both faces concealed. Against the other wall was a tumbled pile of pallets (which were useful sources for improvised stakes. Buffy occasionally redistributed them throughout the alleys of downtown Sunnydale, just in case.) Faith processed the people, the pallets, the fine layer of dust--

“B, no!” Faith’s hand shot out before she could articulate why, gripped Buffy’s wrist hard enough to bruise, if Buffy ever bruised.

The kneeling figure turned. She was spattered with blood. “Oh, thank God,” she said.

Buffy, who had turned to glare at Faith, snapped back to focus.

“Please, call 911 or something. Her neck-- She’s bleeding so much, I can’t move my hands.”

Buffy went white. Faith didn’t see it - she was already halfway back to the bar to ask the bartender for the usual (ambulance in the alley, make that a double) - but she felt it. Heard the rattle of the stake hitting the ground, felt blood coat her palms as Buffy took over from the panicked civilian. She made it back in time to catch the end of the stammered explanation.

“...and he looked up, and I saw the blood, so I grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him into--” A baffled glance at the pallets. “I… I didn’t see where he went. I just… I applied pressure. That’s what I’m supposed to do, I think.”

Buffy grimaced, and the dumped adrenaline rattled as if through Faith’s own veins. She leaned back, just a hair. “Good work, lady,” she said easily. “You did this kid a big favor. Whatever that asshole was doing, it wasn’t nice.”

“No, it… It wasn’t, was it? I still…” The girl’s brown eyes were wide, shocky. “I hope I didn’t hurt him too bad. I must not have, if he…” She trailed off.

“Ran off,” Faith supplied. “Yeah, those types don’t like pushy women.” A sunny grin, which the girl returned tentatively. Faith heard sirens. They were close - Sunnydale Fire and Rescue knew where their action was.

Buffy looked up sharply. “Can you take another turn?”

The girl squared her shoulders, nodded.

They traded places again. Buffy held her hands carefully away from her nice copper silk shirt. “We’ll go wave the ambulance in,” she said.

They did, but were gone long before the stretcher hit the sidewalk.

#

There weren’t that many places they could wash off that much blood. It was funny stuff, blood - they didn’t see all that much of it in their line of work. Ichor, yes, slime, all kinds, but realio-trulio blood? Not much. Fortunately, Faith’s grimy little by-the-week motel was only half a mile or so from the Bronze.

Faith sprawled braless on her bed while Buffy scrubbed in the bathroom. “Getting a little Lady Macbeth in there, B,” she called.

“It’s blood, Faith. If my mother sees it…”

“It’s good blood, B. The kid’ll live.”

“No thanks to us.” 

_Well, no._ “Comes down to it, I don’t mind not having to work, once in a while.”

“Faith.” Buffy stepped out of the bathroom, backlit in the unflattering light. “I almost killed her. The woman. The rescuer.”

Faith shrugged. The motion hiked her tank top up, and she shucked it off. “You didn’t.” She threw the shirt at Buffy, who batted it towards the laundry bag with a roll of her eyes.

“Only because of you.”

“That’s what I’m here for, B.” She smirked and opened her arms. “Well, not the *only* thing.”

Instead of throwing herself into Faith’s arms, Buffy perched on the edge of the bed, facing the door. “I would have killed her, Faith. I would have…” She took a shaky breath.

Faith sat up and pulled her legs to her chest. “You know this “one girl in all the world” thing is crap, B. Right? It’s crap.” Buffy didn’t turn, but Faith felt her attention. “Slayers die young when they’re alone. They die **stupid** young, and we never gain any ground, because one person can’t save the whole fucking world. Right?” Faith leaned towards Buffy, not with her body. “Before me, before Kendra, you weren’t alone. You have people, B, friends. You need them. Hell, I need them, and I can’t fucking stand people.” She slid back down into her sprawl. “You’ve got me, B. You always will.”

Buffy turned towards her, eyes red, shaking with the reaction she’d been holding off. Faith held her arms up again, and this time Buffy did throw herself into them. She buried her face in Faith’s neck and shivered, moving slightly to let Faith unbutton her unstained silk shirt, sliding close, skin to skin. The contact overwhelmed Faith’s senses, as it usually did, and they both slid into the place where there were two bodies but only one Slayer. Just comfort, at first. Just the reassurance of unwounded flesh and functioning nerves, stimulus/response, heat. 

Heat.

As it always did, the post-adrenaline lust kicked in. The dampness on Faith’s neck changed from tears to tongue. Buffy was still wound tight, nearly vibrating, but she slid her thigh between Faith’s and Faith stopped worrying about her. Buffy’s hand reached for Faith’s breast.

And stopped. Pulled back. 

It was a bucket of ice water on Faith’s nerves. “B?”

Buffy was examining her hand, checking under her fingernails. “I don’t. I need.”

Faith understood what she meant. She had to. She took Buffy’s hand back, placed it firmly on its destination. “There’s no blood, B. And if there were, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Buffy’s lips flattened in something that definitely wasn’t a smile. “It’s usually yours. Or mine.”

“Hey, I’m all for threesomes.”

That got Buffy to actually laugh, if only a little. She shivered a little, and Faith did too, as the heat came back.

Buffy did this thing sometimes, Faith thought privately, even as she gave herself to the heat. She set things aside. Usually so she could go do something dumb and heroic. They didn’t go away - Faith never talked to her about the nightmares, or the four a.m. sobbing - but it got whatever the problem was out of the way so that she could deal with the monster in front of her.

As her first orgasm (or maybe Buffy’s; it was hard to tell) shook her, Faith thought, _I don’t love being the monster, B._

This time, Buffy didn’t hear her.


End file.
